Maybe
by Duilin
Summary: Father told him. He told him that when someone dies, they look as if they are sleeping.  Not like this. Just...not like this.


Father told him. He told him that when someone dies, they look as if they are sleeping. He promised it, he said death would never be painful, not for the Elves, not for any of those unafraid to embrace the light of the Valar, the light of the Trees. He promised. This thought remained in Fëanáro's head for quite a while. By watching silent drops of rain run down the glassy window, he was quite sure that the world was frozen, and everything had stopped with the death of his father.

No, there was no use in trying to convince himself that anything would be less painful of the world _had_ stopped.

Maybe he would have felt better if he had the body buried at once, but there was a strange lag to his movements, as if he were trapped in some grey void while a replacement orchestrated everything else. He remained in the room, sometimes standing over the bed, sometimes sitting by the window, and now, he was simply watching the grey sky, and it reminded him so much of his father's eyes that he wasn't sure if he had drowned or not.

He mulled over this.

Drowning had been a possibility earlier, when there wasn't enough time for him to cry, and it seemed that those staved tears were slowly suffocating him. Everything had happened so quickly, from the invitation and his father to declining to go to coming back to Formenos with a dead Finwë, misshapen skull and blood of former glory. Then, things went slow from there, and Fëanáro was now sitting in a room with his father, gazing at a window like some sort of stargazing lunatic—but he was not a stargazing lunatic, he was an Elf who just lost his father and had been lied to all these years.

_People do not look like they are sleeping when they die._

Finwë's head was now a mixture of blood, fragments of skull, and a blackened eye so bruised that it was swollen over with sanguinolent skin. Blood vessels had burst from where he had been struck, and contrary to the theory sleeping dead people, he was no way in hell sleeping; even in death, he appeared frightened, choking, as if his mounting horror was not to be contained. He didn't mask any surprise, he didn't try to hide any fear—he was horrifying to Fëanáro, his mouth permanently forming a scream before it even escaped him, and Fëanáro didn't bother to do anything; he just let his father remain that way, because this was all a lie to begin with.

There was never a sense of security in Formenos, always just the metal cage of iron and steel entrapping everyone who entered, a fucking prison, and it still hadn't been enough to prevent the biggest enemy of all to come in.

Fëanáro could just imagine what had happened, and it played out through his head. With willpower enough to power the fire in his forge, he resisted the cruel laugh that wished to escape. If he had been present, maybe he would have done something other than answer the door.

He could just see it, Melkor striding over to the door confidently, knocking on the door timidly like a wandering journeyer seeking sanctuary, his father rendering the door ajar with concern and pity, and then right then and there, Melkor raising that damn hammer and lowering it before anything else happened, before the wind screamed, before Finwë yelled, before there was even time for the shadow to catch up with the figure.

And then behold: a dead king, stolen Silmarils, and a damn smug Vala fleeing before Fëanáro could do anything about it.

Just so damn ironic. Knocking on the door. Answering the door. Dying.

He still didn't understand why this had to happen to him. Everything was a dream to him, and maybe, just maybe, if he stared at the rain a while longer, his father's warm voice would come to him and tell him gently to relax his intense gaze. Maybe, if he stared at the rain a while longer, his father would tell him to come and give him an embrace and tell him to stop worrying.

And maybe, just maybe, if he cried with the sky, his father would be alive.

And he would look as if he were sleeping.


End file.
